Victory condition

Victory conditions (勝利条件, Shōri Jōken) refer to the various ways a player can win a Duel.

Normal Victory conditions

These are the typical ways to win in the game's mechanics.

• Your opponent's Life Points are reduced to 0.
• Your opponent is required to draw a card, but has no cards left in their Main Deck.

A player can also win if their opponent surrenders, or is issued a Game Loss or Match Loss penalty in a tournament. In addition, most tournament Duels are timed; if time runs out and the Duel has not ended, the player with more Life Points wins. If Life Points are tied, "Sudden Death" ensues; when the first change in Life Points happens, the player with more is deemed the Winner.

Alternate Victory conditions

These cards have effects that provide alternate ways to win a Duel:

• Exodia the Forbidden One: If your hand contains this card along with "Left Arm of the Forbidden One", "Right Arm of the Forbidden One", "Left Leg of the Forbidden One" and "Right Leg of the Forbidden One", you win the Duel. All five of these cards are currently Limited.
• Destiny Board: If this card places "Spirit Message "I"", "Spirit Message "N"", "Spirit Message "A"" and "Spirit Message "L"" all on your side of the field in that order through its effect, you win the Duel. "Destiny Board" can place one "Spirit Message" card from your hand or Deck at the end of each of your opponent's turns.
• Last Turn: When you activate this card by paying 1000 Life Points, you choose one monster you control, and all other cards on the field and in both players' hands are sent to the Graveyard. Your opponent then Special Summons a monster from their Deck. A special Battle Phase occurs in which the two monsters battle and Battle Damage is ignored. The player whose monster remains alone on the field at the End Phase of this turn wins the Duel. This card is currently Forbidden in the Advanced Format.
• Final Countdown: Once this card is activated by paying 2000 Life Points, you win the Duel in 20 turns.
• Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes: If this card has three Hyper-Venom Counters on it, you win the Duel. "Vennominaga" gains a Hyper-Venom Counter every time it inflicts Battle Damage to your opponent. (In the anime, this card allowed you to win the Duel three turns after it inflicted Battle Damage to your opponent.)
• Exodius the Ultimate Forbidden Lord: If five different "Forbidden One" cards are in your Graveyard that were sent there by this card's effect, you win the Duel. "Exodius" sends 1 monster from your hand or Deck to the Graveyard every time it attacks.
• The Creator God of Light, Horakhty: If this card is Summoned, you win the Duel. The only way to Summon "Horakhty" is by Tributing monsters whose original (printed) names are "Slifer the Sky Dragon", "Obelisk the Tormentor" and "The Winged Dragon of Ra", so you cannot use cards like "Phantom of Chaos" to copy any card names. The Summon of "Horakhty" cannot be negated, so cards like "Solemn Warning", etc. are useless against it.
• Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo: If this card has three Destiny Counters on it, you win the Duel. "Leo" can gain a Destiny Counter once per turn by detaching one of its three Xyz Materials, but in order to do so, you must have no cards in your Spell & Trap Card Zone and must skip that turn's Battle Phase. (In the anime, this card allowed you to win the Duel if it had no Xyz Materials left, with no other restrictions.)
• Number C88: Gimmick Puppet Disaster Leo: This is an anime-only card. Similar to the anime effect of its non-Chaos counterpart, you win the Duel during your End Phase if this card has no Xyz Materials left.
• Match Winners: If a Match Winner attacks your opponent directly and makes their Life Points 0 by the Battle Damage it inflicted, you win the entire Match instead of just the Duel. All Match Winners printed are Illegal, except for "Victory Dragon", which is instead Forbidden in the Advanced Format.

Changing/Removing Victory Conditions

These cards have effects that change or remove the normal Victory conditions. Currently, none of the cards in this category exist in the TCG or OCG.

• Divine Serpent: While you control this face-up card, you cannot lose the Duel. This is an anime-only card.
• Relay Soul and Zero Gate of the Void: When successfully activated, these cards permanently replace all of the opponent's Victory conditions with the sole Victory condition of destroying a particular monster on the field. This presumably means that if the monster later leaves the field without being destroyed, the opponent will have no way to win the Duel. Relay Soul is an anime-only card, while Zero Gate of the Void is a manga-only card.
• Deuce: While this card is face-up on the field, neither player can lose the Duel if their Life Points become 0. Instead, a player wins the Duel if they damage their opponent twice in a row. This is an anime-only card.
• Infernity Zero: While you control this face-up card, you do not lose the Duel if your Life Points become 0. This card exists only in the anime and in Tag Force 5 and Tag Force 6.

Other

• Yata-Garasu: In most video games, if a player successfully inflicts Battle Damage to their opponent with "Yata-Garasu" while the opponent controls no cards and has no cards in their hand, the opponent will automatically surrender the Duel at the start of their next turn, because of "Yata-Garasu"'s lockdown effect. This applies to both human and CPU players, and will occur even if not surrendering would have been beneficial (such as if the controller of "Yata-Garasu" had no cards left in their Deck and would have lost had the opponent not surrendered).